


Command Me To Be    Well

by mac_haze



Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: Cutting, Drug Use, F/M, Hand Jobs, Light Dom/sub, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 13:20:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3412112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mac_haze/pseuds/mac_haze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He cut himself in the bathroom because he didn’t want to get blood on the sheets. He faced the mirror, as he had on other occasions, and held the razor to his chest. Without regret or hesitation, he sliced shallowly into his skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Command Me To Be    Well

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning: this work does contain self-harm in the form of cutting and past drug use, so you might want to sit this out if it makes you squeamish. 
> 
> Had to write this after watching this video (at least a couple dozen times): 
> 
> Take Me to Church  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-tW0CkvdDI 
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not know Sergei Polunin and took a lot of creative liberties with this piece. 
> 
> See notes at the end of the story for further information.

He cut himself in the bathroom because he didn’t want to get blood on the sheets. He faced the mirror, as he had on other occasions, and held the razor to his chest. Without regret or hesitation, he sliced shallowly into his skin.

She found him, naked, in front of the mirror. He had reopened the old scars just above his heart, blood dripping lazily down his chest.

He gave no indication of hiding what he had done. She knew he wouldn’t. He never apologized for things he needed. She could never fully articulate how she understood that he needed these moments, craved the pain as much as the release, but knew her quiet acceptance was enough.

He never cut deep enough to cause damage, only enough to experience the exhilaration of pain. He watched her from her place in the doorway, his eyes tracking her movements as much as he did the blood tracing patterns on his skin.

She could see his pupils were blown in the mirror, his hands braced on the sink, razor resting on the counter.

She dragged her nightshirt from her form, let it puddle on the floor, and pressed her bare chest against his back. His eyes closed a moment as he leaned into her warmth. She kissed the line of his shoulder, let her fingers trace the curves of his ribs, and met his eyes in the mirror. 

She made him wait. He remained silent.

The pads of her fingers skimmed the ridges of his abdomen, and sank into the valley of his hips. She dragged her nails over his flanks and the rounded flesh of his ass admiring his form.

She held his gaze over his shoulder, and reached under his arm for the razor. When she lifted it for him to see, she could feel his body tense, want evident in the darkening of his eyes.

She let the blade rest on the skin curving over his pectoral muscle under the lines he already made, and ran her hand down his body, taking hold of his length. The muscles of his jaw clenched at the sensation and when she nipped playfully at his earlobe he turned his head to rest his cheek against her temple, waiting.

He was not a patient man, but for this, he could control himself. He could be still for this. For her.

_______________

It had been three years since he walked out of the Royal Ballet. Three years since he left his home of nine years with nothing but the ink on his skin to his name. Three years since everything about what he knew splintered in great shards, leaving him broken and lost among the wreckage of the life he once thought he wanted.

The sense of loss, of being completely alone, had clung to his skin for months. No one cared and neither did he.

Rediscovery was the intention behind his desertion, but nothing came without price. 

The Royal Ballet had raised him in its image to be a dancer. Being a prodigy was their label. Everything came easily. When he earned principal at nineteen, he was the only one unsurprised. The more applause he achieved, the heavier the pressure became.

He had been taught that pressure kept dancers, quite literally, on their toes. Eight to ten hour rehearsals leading to performances ensured that every step came naturally, his body nothing but precision, nothing but the dance.

He read and heard from the media and from reviews. He was put in categories with the greatest dancers ballet had ever known, but he wasn’t being seen. He was lost among the comparisons, identifying himself as an imitation of other dancers while he, the individual, was nowhere in sight. He wanted to be more than technique, more than graceful lines.

And slowly but surely he felt himself, his true self, slipping away. All the things he had once loved about ballet, the fluidity of the human body, the language of movement, lost their meaning until only the steps were left.

By his own allowance, he had knowingly become what others wanted. He could never control perception, and became a reluctant submissive permitting others to lose themselves in their own fantasies of what they needed him to be. He supposed at any one point he was all of the things envisioned: a rebel, an angel, a romantic, a heartbreaker, even a child. He was a man of many faces, of many talents, slipping seamlessly into the skins of the roles he danced. 

So many years of fulfilling others’ desires left him confused to the point where his own reflection was unknowable. He recognized the features, but not the man who possessed them. He was an empty shell, without form—a body capable of moving in time with music, and nothing more. He thought it a shame and a waste that he didn’t love dancing as much as dancing loved him.

Choices were always made for him. He made decisions based on preconceived expectations that may have well been written in the fine print of his dancing contract. In essence, he signed away his soul. The only thing that mattered was the performance. The dancers were inconsequential. No longer wishing to be collateral damage in the name of a full house, he resigned.

He didn’t mean to be a disappointment, or to hurt those who helped him, invested in him, counted on him. But he ached to be something of his own choosing.

By nature, he was an artist meant to create. For nine years he had been willing to bury his nature and instead, forced himself to be content with complacency, and as a result took risks with inevitable backlash after realizing that an inherent sense of boredom had become synonymous with his self image. He knew better than to play with a force of nature, especially one as destructive as the media.

It had been fun and games for him, but not for the theatre. The gravity of his actions did nothing to mollify his unhappiness.

Over the years the theatre that had once been a sanctuary became an immovable force, without forgiveness or compassion; became something to fear. Everything familiar rode on the temperamental mood swings of the institution. The theatre bent him to its will with its all-consuming influence.

Tradition had trained him, created him, and tradition was set to keep him with a grip that left bruises nine years in the making. 

It was his given right to make mistakes, even to disappear, so long as it was his choice, his doing. But not while under the ever-watchful and disapproving eye of the theatre.

He was exhausted by his unhappiness and the struggle of feeling as though it was his duty to accept himself as an outstanding dancer in what felt like a mediocre routine of a predictable existence when he wanted to be so much more. 

So he rebelled the only way he knew how. Divorcing himself from the theatre, from England, wasn’t something he did blindly. He knew what he stood to lose. His colleagues, his home, his respect—all of it gone.

The loss masked the newfound freedom he had given himself.

He was at his lowest when she found him, licking coke residue from his fingers to draw out his high and talent lying by the wayside because he couldn’t bring himself to dance after London. Before her, he kept everyone at arm’s length. Loneliness was instinctive, something he was used to; something he had been raised with. He lived with absence and avoided sadness, teaching himself that despondency was normal. 

He was always one to trust his instincts, which was an almost enigmatic force standing strong and silent by his side, that told him being alone was safe. Somehow, her strength, her persistence, was able to crack and chip away at his version of normalcy until vulnerability took its place. Her presence behind him altered his instinct to always be isolated. He chose to trust her with his fragile balance between existence and irrelevance. 

She sifted through what was left and reassembled him into something cracked but able to heal. Something recognizable. Something he could get to know. 

So used to instruction was he, that the submissive in him rose to the surface. He remembered how his skin prickled and shivered at her commands to be well. The rebellion tucked away at the base of his spine, overcome by his body’s hunger to obey. 

_______________

She breathed in satisfaction when she scraped the sharpened edge of the blade along his skin. Not enough to draw blood, but hard enough so that he understood she wanted him to stay with her. Slipping into his own headspace was not her desire with what she was about to do. What she knew he was going to allow. He shivered in anticipation and blinked heavily through arousal to keep himself present.

When she initially took him into her hand, he was already half hard. The contact of her grip was expected, yet shocking. He murmured something in Russian. She could guess the meaning, and slid her hand down his length, pressing the blade harder into his skin.

She saw the reflection of his fists clenched in the mirror. The white of his knuckles stark against the flush that blossomed along the planes of his body from her lavished attention. 

She held him in place, blade pressing almost enough to break through. She grasped his hardening flesh in her fist, and smiled as his hips thrust forward into her grip seeking more. She licked her way along the nape of his neck and nosed along his hairline. 

He surrendered to her, reconciling himself to the knowledge that in this moment she was in control; hers to command. She would give him what he needed on her own time. He could rest easy knowing that she would take pleasure in watching him fall apart in her hands, only to put him back together in the aftermath. 

She would never leave him ruined. 

He wanted the pain, needed it in this moment. The first time he had done this the initial slice brought him back to life. He remembered being able to feel his heartbeat throb along the edge of the wound he created. He watched the blood being expelled from his body by his pulse and thought that he had more to give of himself than this. 

These dark moments were few and far between now, when three years prior the pain had been a reminder that he was still alive, still capable of feeling. These were moments he had experienced alone, but now that he had her acceptance, he was willing to share. 

His breathing grew labored, great heaving breaths with desperation in their dregs. She moved her hand faster and harder, his hips stuttering in response. He focused on their bodies’ reflection through heavy-lidded eyes, resisting the urge to put his hand over hers and guide the blade into his skin. He was aching, could feel the pleasure mounting and waiting for the final push. 

As if she could sense his impeding release, she finally pressed hard enough to break the skin. The blade slid easily through his flesh. He shattered, a moan emanating deep inside his chest as his orgasm ripped up his spine and down to his fingertips as he spilled himself over her hand. 

Despite his shaking, he turned in the circle of her arms and tangled his fingers in her hair. He licked his way into her mouth, kissing her deep and wet, gratitude evident in languid curls of tongue.

He broke the kiss to rest his forehead against hers, and pulled her close. He felt her lips, gentle on his cheek. Her fingers dragged down the knobs of his spine and back, an endless loop, until his breathing calmed and his shaking ceased. 

She parted with him to wipe the blood from his chest and laced their fingers together. She gave him a gentle tug towards their bed. 

He smiled softly, and followed.

**Author's Note:**

> Further Disclaimers: Not only did I watch the "Take Me to Church" video (like a maniac), I also referenced this video quite heavily and (shamelessly) used Polunin's language, which was quite inspiring and revealing in itself, throughout the piece. No disrespect or offense was intended with this posting. 
> 
> "The Fragile Balance"  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdgTuBug0JI


End file.
